What up, life?

It's party day -whew! Time to bring on the Batman, the cake, and the three year olds. Then - a nap. (Who am I kidding - naps are a distant and beautiful memory.)

I have been wishing daily to blog and keep up with all of your blogs, but this whole working mom (with a new, much more intense job description - which I love, don't get me wrong) is way freaking harder than I thought. Every second of my waking hours seems to be full and yet I have a messy house, a stack of work I need to get to, and a husband I vaguely remember having adult dinners with.

The good side is this, I have never had to prioritize and organize so carefully in my life. I am an easily distracted person who has had the bad habit of bouncing from one project to the next instead of taking my mom's best advice - One Thing At a Time Until It's Done. I also prefer to start with something I like (like blogging, cooking, organizing the baby's clothes) instead of what is truly most important (getting food on the table - gourmet or not, packing lunches, making sure everyone has clothes for tomorrow). No more of that! Now I have to put first things first or they won't happen. It is a wake up call that I needed.

Could the house be cleaner, if I decided that sweeping, dusting, and organizing where second after basic needs? Probably. But, I have decided that those things are not my next priority. 

Better Homes and Gardens will not be knocking on my door. I haven't cooked a complicated recipe in three weeks. But, last night I sat and held my baby for half an hour, rocking him and talking with him and gazing into his deep blue eyes. Today, I am going to spend two hours focusing all of my attention on making sure my three year old has the Batmaniest, best birthday party he can imagine (I even hired a babysitter for the baby so that the three year old will get all of our attention for once). As long as I am keep us fed, clothed, and relatively clean - the next most important priority is time with my kids.

So, if you happen to come to my house and you notice the mess, here is what I want. When you see the dirty dishes in the sink, notice instead the art supplies and pictures strewn around the kitchen table where we were making beautiful pictures. When you see the pile of shoes in the living room, also notice the pile of storybooks on the couch where we were curled up reading. If you happen to go into my bedroom and want to focus on the papers overflowing the "to file" box, take a peek at the stack of baseball cards Stone and Simon spend hours enthusiastically organizing.

This part of my life is not as polished on the outside as I have previously expected from myself, but it is the sweetest, best part I have ever experienced.

Funerals and Weird Apples

I had to go to a funeral today. It totally sucked. Not that most funerals are fun, but this one was particularly sad because it was for a young (37) friend who left behind two small children. There are not a lot of uplifting things to say about a situation like that.

On the way home, Stone and I started talking about what we want for our own funerals. I want a memorial service that really reflects who I am:

I want a memorial party, not a funeral - somewhere nontraditional - like the ballroom at a cool hotel.
I want balloons - like a birthday party - big, shiny balloons at the entrance and decorating the ballroom.
I want an ice-cream sundae bar - with all the best toppings - hot fudge, mini M'n'M's, brownie bits, praline pecans, etc. People can eat while they mingle.
I want TV's set up around the room playing my favorite movies - like The Princess Bride and my favorite episodes of Friends.
I may, at some point, want a mariachi band. I am a little up in the air on that one.

The friend we mourned today was one of the funniest people I knew. He was always playing practical jokes, finding funny videos on YouTube, and telling ridiculous LaffyTaffy style jokes. He loved to find weird food and share it with us. He would say, "You will never believe what this is!" and then pull out a chocolate covered cricket or cabbage flavored Japanese candy.

Here is a little tribute to him - a bubblegum flavored apple I found in the produce section. It tasted 90% like a normal apple, and then there was a slightly disturbing bubblegum aftertaste.  The texture was the strangest part because you have this crisp, crunchy apple but your mouth tastes like you should be blowing soft pink bubbles. He would have loved it.

Caesar Pizza

We had such a fabulous time yesterday evening at our Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics Party. Good food, friends, pageantry, laughter, tears - Olympic rings made of doughnuts. It was a magical evening!

Okay, I'm lying. That is what I wish the evening had been, if I had enough mental energy to plan an Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics Party. There were no friends. The food was good, but it was re-heated Moroccan stew, not party fare. Simon, despite my great hopes, had no interest in the ceremonies whatsoever. I found myself - a reading teacher - saying to my child, "Put down your book and pay attention to the television!" The baby was crying, the air conditioning was not keeping up with the ridiculous heat. It was not epic.

In some distant, misty memory I used to throw parties. One year for the season premier of Lost, I threw a fabulous party complete with tiny bottles of Oceanic Airlines liquor, buckets of Mr. Cluck's chicken, and fish biscuit shaped cookies for dessert (if you didn't watch Lost, that may not sound cool, but if you did watch Lost, you get how awesome that was). After reading a Civil War novel, I had my book club over for an authentic Civil War meal, complete with johnny cakes and the best beans you have ever tasted. I threw a tea party once that was so fabulously decked in flowers and dripping with tiny sandwiches that it rivaled high tea at the best hotels.

My party days are not completely over, I guess, since I am currently planning one. It is a Batman themed party for my three year old at which a naturalist will be showing the kids a variety of creepy, crawly insects (bat food - get it?).  Not exactly in the same vein as my former bashes, but I will try to make it equally epic. The times, they are a changin'.

Here is a throw back to a New Year's Eve party of yore - one of my favorite Pillsbury recipes. This is what you would get if your favorite Caesar salad hooked up with a light, flaky pizza bianca to produce the perfect appetizer baby. Salty bacon, creamy dressing, flaky crust, crisp veggies. Oh, yeah, bring on the party.

Caesar Pizza

2 cans refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

6 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup Caesar dressing

1 1/2 cups shredded romaine lettuce

3/4 cup coarsly chopped broccoli

1/2 cup finely chopped cooked chicken

 1/2 cup shredded carrot

2 tbsp chopped cooked bacon

3 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Open both cans of rolls; unroll dough onto a rectangular sheet pan. Press the dough firmly to the sides  and bottom of the pan for form the crust (be sure to pinch along the perforations to seal them. Bake at 375F for 15 minutes. Cool completely. 

2. Mix the cream cheese and 1/2 of the dressing in a small bowl; spread over the cooled crust. Sprinkle with  lettuce, broccoli, chicken, carrot, bacon and parmesan. Drizzle with remaining dressing. 

May be refrigerated up to 2 hours before serving.

Hot Water Cornbread

Here are a few things I cannot do:
1. Have potato chips in my house (because I have no self control and will eat the whole bag - yes, the whole bag - in one sitting)
2. Ride roller coasters (because I am olderish and no longer have the inner ear balance required to keep me from hurling)
3.Be aware of possible side effects

That last one is because I think I am a hypochondriac. Two days ago my neurologist prescribed a new prophylactic medication to treat my migraines. Said medication is a blood pressure medication which also helps with headaches. It is v, v safe for breast feeding mommies. The complication is that I already have so-low-I-verge-on-dead blood pressure. So, the doctor warned me that I might get dizzy, lightheaded, and tired.

Dude, why did you tell me that? Now I am dizzy, lightheaded, and tired and I don't know if it is because of the medicine or because I have talked myself into dizziness, lightheadedness, and fatigue (admittedly that last one may have something to do with the baby who went to bed at midnight and got up at 4:00). Do I call the doctor to say I am having side effects or do I tell myself to man-up and knock of the psychosomatics?

What, you are thinking to yourself, does any of this have to do with hot water cornbread? Well, nothing, really. Except that I was going to type out a recipe but decided that I am too lightheaded to accurately remember all of the steps so I will instead ramble at you about my medical issues and show you a picture of the hot water cornbread I ate yesterday at Kleer Vu in Murfreesboro.

Oh my gosh, it was so good! I don't actually understand how they make hot water corn bread and I don't want to know. I realize that no matter what recipe or technique I used, mine would never hold a candle to the crisp-on-the-outside, soft-in-the-middle, salty, sweet golden goodness that is Kleer Vu cornbread. Why even try to imitate it when I am a ten minute drive away from enjoying the world's most perfect version next to my plate of ribs, white beans, fried okra, and chess pie?

Back to the whole headache thing. The doctor says that if this doesn't work, I can try one other medication. And if that doesn't work, I can try botox. Seriously, botox. My dad thinks that idea is hilarious because he envisions me unable to make facial expressions like some over the hill Hollywood maven. I just think to myself, as someone who loves to cook and prides myself on the quality of my food, isn't injecting myself with botulinum toxin kind of ironic? Just, please, don't tell me the side effects.

Cinnamon Pecan Pull Aparts

My sil posted a great meme the other day. It read, "Pinterest makes me love people I've never met. Facebook makes me hate people I know in real life."

I don't hate anyone on Facebook, but sometimes I get weary of all the political posts - especially as it gets closer to election time. It's not that I don't care about politics - I love politics. It's just that I have friends from both sides, and plenty from the middle, of the political spectrum and few of them seem to be able to play nicely with one another. I love a good, healthy discussion, but disrespect and fighting are not my thing.

This is why I think I should start my own political party based on something everyone can believe in: Cinnamon. We will have no philosophies beyond the belief that cinnamon is good for the soul and can bring people together in sweet, gooey bliss. We shall burn apple cinnamon candles, stir our cider with cinnamon sticks, and grow cinnamon ferns in our gardens. For breakfast we shall serve: Cinnamon Pecan Pull-Apart

Cinnamon Pecan Pull-Apart (a Pillsbury recipe)

3/4 cup chopped pecans

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp maple flavor

2 cans refrigerated cinnamon rolls with icing (each roll cut into four pieces)

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients save cinnamon rolls and icing. Add cinnamon roll pieces and stir lightly, just until coated. Spoon the mixture into a greased, fluted pan. Bake at 350F for 35 minutes. After cooling for 10 minutes, turn the pull-apart onto a serving plate. Spread with icing.

 Please check out my brand new Twitter account at https://twitter.com/Angelas_chaos.

My favorite tweet of the day so far comes from Vanity Fair:

The weekend may almost be over, but we can still dream a little. A look at the best private paradises on Earth http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2012/06/travel-villas-castle-rental-yacht-charters?mbid=social_twitter#slide=4

I need a vacation! 

Summer Reading Comes to an End

Today was the last day of the summer reading program at our local library. Simon had to "read" (aka listen to us read) 30 books. He turned in a list of 449 (there were more but we didn't get them all written down).  His favorite of the bunch was a book entitled Squids Will be Squids.

This is a fabulously funny book by one of Simon's favorite authors, Jon Scieszka. It is a parody of Aesop's fables that uses biographic information about that bard to envelope a series of sarcastic, whimsically illustrated fables that appeal to both children and adults.

I had to read 6 books this summer. My actual list included 9 titles.
1. Frederica, Georgette Heyer
2. Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris
3. Jeeves and the Fuedal Spirit, P. G. Wodehouse
4. Look me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's, John Elder Robinson
5. The Color of Water, James McBride
6. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
7. My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier
8. The Convenient Marriage, Georgette Heyer
9. Love Wins, Rob Bell

My favorite was Love Wins, by Rob Bell.

Rob Bell's book purports to be about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Ever Person Who Ever Lived. It delivers. It is a searing look at "traditional" Christian beliefs that questions what some would consider the foundation of conservative American Christianity. It made me think and totally re-examine everything I was taught to believe as a child. I love that kind of book!

Don't forget to follow my new Twitter account at https://twitter.com/Angelas_chaos! My favorite tweet of the day so far:

"Drinking red wine could stunt fat-cell growth (woot!), the Journal of Biological Chemistry reports: http://t.co/AyTn3lGl " Awesome!!!!

Ranch Chicken Burgers

Do people ever just annoy the crap out of you? I don't know what kind of crack was in people's coffee this morning, but they have been on my ever loving nerves! I need a chill pill, a bottle of chill juice, and a chill sandwich with chill sauce. Blargh!!!!  At least when people are stupid, there is still good food!

Three reasons you will love this recipe:
1. There are only three ingredients.
2. With chicken and low fat mozerella, it is a low fat alternative to a hamburger
3. The cheese and ranch dressing mix will caramelize in the pan, giving the burger a sweet, crispy crust that will have you licking your plate clean. 

Ranch Chicken Burgers

1 package ranch dressing mix (powder)

1 lbs ground chicken

1 cup low fat mozzarella, shredded

Combine dressing with mix and cheese. Shape into four patties. Cook in a skillet over medium heat until the chicken is cooked through. We like ours on a crisp lettuce leaf instead of bread. 

Now...off to find my zen. It may be a long search.

BTW - you can now follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Angelas_chaos